European culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed a radical redefinition of `humanity' and its place in the environment, together with a new understanding of animals and their relation to humans. In examining the dynamics of animal-human relations as embodied in the literature, art, farming practices, natural history, religion and philosophy of this period, leading experts explore the roots of much current thinking on interspecies morality and animal welfare. The animal-human relationship challenged not only disciplinary boundaries - between poetry and science, art and animal husbandry, natural history and fiction - but also the basic assumptions of human intellectual and cultural activity, expression, and self-perception. Through a multifaceted study of eighteenth-century European culture, authors reveal how the animal presence - both real and imagined - forces a different reading not only of texts but also of society.